When you go to Terazije Square from Nikola Pašić Square in the center of Belgrade, there are several options.
One of the possibilities, at the same time the shortest route, is through the passage between the buildings, through the famous Bezistan.
Designed and built in 1957 on the site of former buildings destroyed in World War II bombings, this covered square has been a quiet refuge between large squares for years.
There were cafes, the largest Belgrade cinema Kozara, various souvenir shops, sweets and handicraft shops...
And so my entire childhood.
When we went to our friends' birthday parties in our primary school years from 1983 to 1991, we bought badges, printed shirts, interesting toys, hats and scarves in Bezistan.
When we started going out in the following years, that's where we gathered at McCafe.
The 1990s came, the country fell apart in a civil war. We had high inflation and Bezistan became a gathering place for foreign exchange dealers and sellers of copied VHS tapes with movies that we couldn't get any other way.
After 2000, during the transition, part of the buildings were sold to the private sector. The old Kozara cinema burned down. Small shops were closed, and the fountain that worked there for 50 years stopped its water.
Bezistan has lost all the glamor and color it once had.
In my mind, I still remember it as a warm place, where I sat on the benches with my friends, and today it is a gray, dilapidated place, where pieces of concrete fall from the ceiling.
The place where the slabs we walked on and the benches we used to sit on were destroyed, now a fence separates the safe passage where part of the ceiling will not fall on your head and where no one sits anymore.
How would anybody sit, when water from rain and melted snow is pouring down on them from the ceiling, forming icicles...
The warm and sunny place of my childhood, now I paint without color, in order to convey the sadness, grayness and coldness that now awakens in me.
Nevertheless, it is still very vivid and dear in my mind and I hope that in the future the property disputes of the land on which Bezistan is located will be resolved and that it will be reconstructed and restored to its old glory and beauty, which will be enjoyed by all future generations. just like I could in my youth.
